Planet Earth. This is where I spent nineteen years of my life. And this is where I died. For those nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever. And then I met a man called the Doctor.
FLASHBACK
"Run." was all the strange man said and we did.
I watched the Doctor prancing around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers, full of energy and enthusiasm.
A man who could change his face. And he took me away from home in his magical machine.
The Doctor spun around with a triumphant "ha!", arms wide with glee, making me laugh.
The Doctor and I run down an ordinary street, hand in hand, happy..
He showed me the whole of time and space and helped me remember my past as a Time Lady. The Hunter. I thought it would never end.
The Doctor and I were standing a short way away from the TARDIS watching the sunset on an alien planet, arms wrapped around each other.
That's what I thought. But then came the army of ghosts. Then came Torchwood and the War. And that's when it all ended. This is the story of how I died.
The Doctor and I made the TARDIS materialize in a play park area as Rose came back down with her large red rucksack filled with clothes. We all walked out of our home and set off towards the flats on the Powell Estate with a spring in our step.
"Mum, it's us! We're ba-ack!" Rose called as we all walked inside.
"Oh, I don't know why you bother with that phone! You never use it!" Mum said to us.
"Shut up and come here!" I told her and she hugged Rose and I together.
"Oh, I love you two!" she said.
"I love you!" Rose and I told her.
"I love you so MUCH!" she said. Mum let us go and the Doctor tried to squeeze past us, but Mum spotted him. "Oh no you don't. Come here!" She pulled him towards her and planted kisses on his cheeks, despite his weak protests. "Oh, you lovely big fella! Oh, you're all ours!" she said, continuing to kiss him.
"Just- just- just put me down!" the Doctor told her and I laughed at them.
"Yes, you are!" She kissed him again and then walked off, leaving the Doctor to wipe his face with his hands, looking for all the world like a little boy with an over-affectionate mother. He walked next to me, bending down to give me a kiss.
"I've got LOADS of washing for ya! And - we got you this!" Rose said handing Mum the large rucksack and showing her a tiny ornate bottle with a wide grin. "It's from the market on this asteroid bazaar. It's made of um... what's it called?" she asked me.
"Bezoolium." I told her.
"Bezoolium. When it gets cold, yeah, it means it's gonna rain - when it's hot, it's gonna be sunny! We can use it to tell the weather!" Rose told her.
"I've got a surprise for you and all." Mum told us.
"Oh, we get her bezoolum - she doesn't even say 'thanks'." Rose said to me and I smiled at her.
"Guess who's coming to visit? You're just in time - he'll be here at ten past! Who do you think it is?" Mum asked us.
"I don't know." Rose told her.
"Oh go on, guess!" Mum told us.
"No, I hate guessing. Just tell us." I told her.
"It's your grandad. Grandad Prentice. He's on his way. Any minute!" Mum said and my smile fell from my face. "Right, cup of tea!" I watched Mum as she disappeared into the kitchen.
"She's gone mad." Rose said.
"Tell me something new." The Doctor told her.
"Grandad Prentice - that's her dad. But he died like, ten years ago. Oh my God. She's lost it." I said going to her. "Mum? What you just said about grandad..."
"Any second now." she repeated.
"But... he passed away. His heart gave out. Do you remember that?" I asked her.
"Course I do!" she said lightly and I gave her a confused face.
"... Then how can he come back?" Rose asked her.
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" she told us before checking her watch. "Ten past. Here he comes." Right before our eyes, a figure stepped out of nowhere in the middle of the kitchen. It was featureless, like a shadow, but definitely humanoid. It went and stood beside Mum. "Here we are, then! Dad... say hello to Rose and Ashlee. Ain't they grown?" The Doctor and I ran out of the flat and burst out of the side-door of the block of flats at a run. We came to a halt, looking around.
"They're everywhere!" he said. Sure enough, the ghosts were everywhere, standing around just like ordinary people. No one seemed to be remotely alarmed by their presence. A group of boys carry on with their ball game, just as normal. I turned to him and saw one of the ghosts about to run into him.
"Doctor, look out!" I told him. The ghost walked right through him, causing him discomfort but no pain.
"They haven't got long." Mum said as she and Rose joined us. "Midday shift only lasts a couple of minutes. They're about to fade."
"What do you mean, SHIFT? Since when did ghosts have shifts? Since when did shifts have ghosts? What's going on?" The Doctor asked as we looked around.
"Oh, he's not happy when I know more than him, is he?" Mum asked with laughter in her voice.
"But no one's running or screaming or freaking out or-" The Doctor listed off.
"Why should we?" she asked him and I looked back at her to see her checking her watch. "Here we go. Twelve minutes past." She smiled at both rose and myself, biting her lip with anticipation. I looked back to the street and watched as the ghosts disappeared. I glanced around, even more confused than before. The four of them then headed back to the flats. The Doctor and I immediatly sat down in front of the TV to try and find out was was happening.
"On today's Ghostwatch, claims that some of the ghosts are starting to talk, and there seems to be a regular formation gathering around Westminster Bridge." the footage cut from the man talking to the ghosts milling around Westminster Bridge. "It's almost like a military display..."
"What the hell's going on?" He changed the channel to what would appear to be a weather report - but instead of weather symbols, there were little pictures of ghosts on the map of the UK.
"And tonight we're expecting very strong ghosts. From London, through the North and up into Scotland." Turn over to the Trisha Goddard chat show. The caption at the bottom of the screen proclaimed "I married a dead man!"
"So basically, Eileen, what you're telling me is, that you are in love with a ghost." Trisha said. Eileen sat in front of the studio audience as a ghost hovered around by the other chair.
"He's MY ghost and I love him, 24/7!" she said and the audience sent a round of applause, encouraging her. Change channel.
"Well, no one needs me anymore!" Change channel. It was a cheesy advert - a housewife in a flowery apron addressed the camera in her kitchen while a sad-looking animated ghost hovered around above the worktop.
"My ghost was pale and grey until I discovered... Ectoshine!" she said. I shook my head in confusion as the Doctor changed the channel.
"Et le President d'aujourd'hui, quelle est-" the man said in French. the screen cut to footage of the ghosts wandering around the Eiffel Tower. Change channel - an Indian news report. Ghosts were milling around the Taj Mahal. Change channel to an enthusiastic Japanese Newsreader. The Doctor put his head in his hands.
"Oh, yes!" I turned to Mum, looking at her confused. The screen cut to footage of three excited Japanese girls, all screeched wildly and showed off their ghost t-shirts.
"It's all over the world." he said as he changed the channel to an episode of Eastenders. Peggy Mitchell is behind the bar of the Vic.
"Listen to me, Denn Watts. I don't care if you HAVE come back from the grave. Get out of my pub!" The screen showed a picture of the ghost just standing around. "The only spirits I'm serving in this place are gin, whisky and vodka. So, you heard me - GET OUT!" The Doctor switched off the TV and we turned to Mum.
"When did it start?" he asked her.
"Well first of all, Peggy heard this noise in the cellar, so she goes down-" Mum started saying, but I stopped her.
"No, not the sho Mum. He meant the ghosts going worldwide." I said.
"Oh! That was about two months ago. Just happened. Woke up one morning, and there they all were - ghosts, everywhere. We all ran round screaming and that, whole planet was panicking... no sign of YOU, thank you very much... then it sort of sank in. Took us time to realise that... we're lucky." Mum told us.
"What makes you think it's grandad?" Rose asked her.
"Just feels like him. There's that smell, those old cigarettes. Can't you smell it?" She asked us.
"I wish I could, mum, but I can't." Rose told her and she turned to me.
"Nothing." I told her.
"You've got to make an effort. You've got to WANT it, sweetheart." she told us.
"The more you want it, the stronger it gets?" The Doctor told us.
"Sort of, yeah." Mum agreed.
"Like a psychic link. Course you want your old dad to be alive, but you're wishing him into existence. The ghosts are using that to pull themselves in." the Doctor told her.
"You're spoiling it." Mum said.
"I'm sorry, Jackie, but there's no smell, there's no cigarettes. Just a memory." he told her and tears came to her eyes.
"But if they're not ghosts, what are they, then?" I asked.
"Yeah, but they're human! You can see them - they LOOK human!" Mum said.
"She's got a point. I mean, they're all sort of blurred, but they're definitely people." Rose agreed.
"Maybe not. They're pressing themselves into the surface of the world. But a footprint doesn't look like a boot." he said before standing up and following him to the TARDIS. Rose broke off from me and grabbed a paper before we walked in. When we strod in we saw the Doctor wedged under the console as usual.
"According to the paper, they've elected a ghost as MP for Leeds." she said, peering down at him. "Now don't tell me you're gonna sit back and do nothing." The Doctor suddenly popped up from underneath the grilling, bobbing insanely and was accompained by the tune of Ghostbusters. He was holding an odd-looking device in one hand and wearing a rucksack.
"Who're you gonna call?" He asked, going along with the song.
"Ghostbusters!" Rose and I said.
"We ain't afraid of no ghosts." he said and we laughed following him out of the TARDIS. Mum was waiting for us outside for us and we watched as he arranged three cone devices in a triangle shape.
"When's the next shift?" He asked Mum.
"Quarter to." Mum said, checking her watch. "But don't go causing trouble. What's that lot do?"
"Triangulates their point of origin." I told her. "Don't suppose you need help?"
"Nah." he told me.
"I don't suppose it's the Gelth?" Rose asked, remembering one of the stories I'd told her.
"Nah." he told her. "They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper."
"You're always doing this. Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real?" Mum asked him. "Just think of it, though... all the people we've lost - our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?" The Doctor paused in his work, and looked up at her meeting her eyes for the first time since we'd been back.
"I think it's horrific." he told her and she looked at him mildly shocked.
"Some things should just stay dead." I told her and she turned her shocked expression to me.
"Hunter, give us a hand." he called to me as he started unwinding a cable, leading it through into the TARDIS with me following. He plugged it into the console and Mum and Rose followed us into the TARDIS and closed the doors behind them.
"As soon as it becomes activated, if that line goes into the red, press that button there. If it doesn't stop..." he brandished the sonic under my nose and I went cross-eyed trying to focus on it. "Setting 15B, hold it against the port, eight seconds and stop."
"I know love." I told him.
"If it goes into the blue, activate the deep scan on the left." he told me.
"Got it." I told him.
"Now, what've we got? Two minutes to go?" The Doctor asked Mum and we saw her check her watch. The Doctor went outside and I plunged the sonic into a port on the console. I watched on the monitor as the Doctor pressed the device he was holding earlier onto on of the cones. He preceded to do the same to the other two.
"What's the line doing?" he called to me.
"It's all right, it's holding!" I called back to him.
"You even look like him?" Mum said to me and I stayed looking at the monitors.
"How d'you mean?" I asked her, before smiling figuring it out. "I s'pose I do."
"You've changed so much." she told me.
"Not really. I'm the same I've always been." I told her.
"I s'pose." she told me.
"Mum, I've been alive for 900 years. Trust me, I'm the same." I told her.
"But when you lived with us, you were different." Rose told me.
"I remember." I told her.
"What happens when we're gone?" Mum asked me, gesturing both herself and Rose.
"Don't talk like that!" I told her, shocked.
"No, but really. When we're dead and buried, you won't have any reason to come back home. What happens then?" she asked me.
"I'll stay with the Doctor. Like I always have." I told her.
"Do you think you'll ever settle down?" Rose asked me.
"The Doctor and I won't ever be able to." I told her.
"And you'll keep on changing. And in forty years time, fifty, there'll be this woman - this strange woman... walking through the marketplace on some planet a billion miles from Earth. She's not Ashlee Tyler. Not anymore." she told me and and I stared at her, hurt by her words.
"What do you see?" The Doctor called to me and I check the monitor.
"The scanner's working - it says "delta one six"." I called to him. I watched on the monitor as the Doctor stood facing the center of the triangle.
"Come on you beauty!" He cackled, positively jiggling with anticipation. As the Doctor watched the triangle, a ghost materialised in its center. As it did, the cones were connected with blue electricity, which in turn connected over the top of the ghost, encompassing it in a kind of electric blue pyramid. The Doctor put on a pair of what looked like 3D spectacles and watched the ghost. He then bent down and adjusted a setting on his equipment - a green light blipped, which seemed to cause something to happen. The Doctor continued to adjust the knob and the ghost shuddered and groaned. "Don't like that much, do you?" he asked it. "Who are you? Where are you coming from? WHOA!" he had received what seemed like an electric shock from the ghost, and he stumbled backwards. "That's more like it! Not so friendly NOW, are you?" The ghost continued to shudder and jerked within the Doctor's triangle. When the ghost disappeared the Doctor immediately darted forward and began gathering up his equipment. The Doctor ran into the TARDIS with his equipment tucked under his arm before dashing to the railing inside the TARDIS, throwing his coat over it. "I said so! Those ghosts have been FORCED into existence for one specific point! And I can track down the source. Allons-Y!" He pulled down the lever on the console making the TARDIS shudder and we both fell backwards onto the chair. I watched as the rotor rose and fell as we moved. As we were in flight the Doctor twiddled knobs on the console, nattering away to himself. "I like that. 'Allons-y'. I should say 'allons-y' more often. 'Allons-y'. Watch out, Hunter! Allons-y! And THEN, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Allonzo. Because then I could say, 'allons-y, Allonzo'! Every time! You're staring at me." he told me as I listened to the Doctor rattled on with a strange smile on my face.
"My mum and Rose's still on board." I whispered to him. He face fell from giddy to horrified behind me where Mum and Rose were sitting up in the gantries, legs dandling.
"If we end up on Mars, I'm gonna kill you." Mum told him and I smirked at his face. We made the TARDIS materialized in what could have been a storage area and we watched on the monitor as soldiers burst in through the doors, holding guns, shouting and getting into their position.
"Oh, well there goes the advantage of surprise. Still! Cuts to the chase. Stay in here, look after Jackie and Rose." he told me, making his way towards the doors.
"I'm not looking after my mum and sister!" I said following him.
"Well, you brought them!" he told me.
"I was kidnapped!" Mum said.
"I usually tag along." Rose said. I pushed past him and blocking him from getting out.
"Let me go out there with you. Doctor, they've got guns." I said.
"And I haven't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think?" he asked me.
"And what does that make me?" I asked him.
Protective." he said wrapping his arms around my waist and moving me smoothly out of the way. "They can shoot me dead, but the moral high-ground is mine." and with that he opened the door and stepped through it. I rushed back to the monitor as Mum and Rose watched from a crack in the door. The Doctor raised his hands and I heard the soldiers release the safety catches on their guns - every single one pointed at the Doctor. A woman hurried into the room, running towards the Doctor.
"Oh...! Oh, how marvellous." she said clapping. "Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day!" The soldiers followed suit, applauding him. The Doctor lowered his hands tentatively.
"Um. Thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm... the Doctor." he introduced and that set them off clapping again.
"Oh, I should say! Hurray!" the woman said.
"You... you've heard of me, then?" The Doctor asked her.
"Well of course we have. And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would BE here. The Doctor AND the TARDIS...!" Overcome, she started the applause again. The Doctor, clearly enjoying it just a little bit, gestured for silence.
"And... and... and you are?" he asked her.
"Oh, plenty of time for that. But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone. The Doctor and his wife and companion. That's a pattern isn't it, right?" she asked him and he just stared at her. "There's no point hiding anything. Not from us. So where are they?"
"... Yes! Sorry. Good point. They're just a bit shy, that's all." he said, opening the TARDIS door just a tiny bit more, feeling around inside before pulling out both Mum and Rose. "But here they are: Ashlle and Rose Tyler." "Hmm. Rose's NOT the best we've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that." he said, miming chatting and the woman laughed. "And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty-seven years. But she'll do."
"I'm 40!" Mum said and I smiled.
"Deluded. Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well. I say not bad... anyway! Lead on. But not too fast. Her ankle's going." the Doctor said. The woman walked away with the Doctor, Mum and Rose following him.
"I'll show you where my ankle's going." Mum said as I watched them leave. I felt the TARDIS move and looked on the monitor to see them putting us on the truck.
"Hang in there girl. We'll get out this in one piece." I said, rubbing my hands along the console. I walked to the door and looked out to see them all talking.
"Oi! Where're you taking that?" Mum asked.
"If it's alien, it's ours." the woman from before said.
"You'll never get inside it." the Doctor told her.
"Hm! Et cetera." the woman said walking away from them. I looked at the Doctor and saw him nod encouragingly before looking away. I closed to door and went to the Doctor's coat, which was still slung over one of the supports.
"Psychic paper... psychic paper..." I said, rummaging through his coat. I found it and opened it, biting my lip as I anticipated what I could do with it. When I felt them put the TARDIS down I waited a moment before tentatively stepping outside the TARDIS doors and finding myself in a tucked away corner of the factory floor. I quickly dodged out of sight of two men talking -I tried to go the other way but two soldiers approached. I waited until they were gone, and then quickly grabbed a discarded white lab coat, putting it on. I then walked confidently out into the open and no one gave her a second glance. I spotted one man striding purposefully through a door and decided to follow him. I walked down a corridor, still following the man from a distance. I broke into a jog as he rounded a corner, hearing the sound of a door opening and closing. She peered cautiously around the corner and then approacheed the door. I surmised it for a moment, and then kissed the psychic paper before pressing it against the lock, smiling as the door slid open. I walked slowly into the chamber to see a sphere just hanging in the air. A Void Ship.
"Can I help you?" a man asked me.
"I was just..." I said, not able to take my eyes off the sphere.
"Try not to look. It does that to everyone. What do you want?" he asked me again and I looked at him.
"Sorry. Um... they sent me from personnel. They said some man had been taken prisoners. Some sort of Doctor and two women? I'm just... checking the lines of communication, did they tell you anything?" I asked him.
"Can I see your authorization?" he asked me.
"Sure." I said handing him the psychic paper and he checked it.
"That's lucky." he told me and I smiled at him. "You see, everyone at Torchwood has at least a basic level of psychic training." my smile faded. "This paper is blank. And you're a fake. Seal the room. Call security." I turned as the doors closed. "Samuel? Can you check the door locks? She just walked right in." Samuel turned - only it was Mickey.
"Doing it now, sir." he said. I stared at him and he put his finger to his lips before fiving me a thumbs up, grinning.
"Well. If you'd like to take a seat." the man told me. I nodded, lost for words at seeing Mickey. He set up the webcam on the computer.
"Yvonne? I think you should see this. We've got a visitor. We don't know who she is, but funnily enough, she arrived at the same time as the Doctor." the man said and I saw the woman who walked away with the Doctor, Rose and Mum. The woman turned to computer until I saw the three of them.
"She one of yours?" Yvonne asked.
"Never seen her before in my life." The Doctor said, shaking his head.
"Good! Then we can have her shot." Yvonne told him.
"Oh all right then, it'll be worth a try. That's... that's my wife, Ashlee Tyler. Most call her the Hunter." the Doctor told her.
"Hello!" I said waving to them. The Doctor offered me a small smile and waved back.
"Well, if that's Ashlee Tyler, who's SHE?" Yvonne asked him.
"I'm her mother and this is my youngest daughter, Rose." Mum told her.
"Oh, you travel with her entire family?" Yvonne asked him.
"He kidnapped us." Mum told her.
"Please, when Torchwood comes to write my complete history, don't tell people I travelled through time and space with her family..."I heard the Doctor say before we were put on mute.
"Yvonne, I thought you said the next Ghost Shift was cancelled." the man said to her through his comm as Mickey, who was checking the locks, glanced over his shoulder. "What's going on? Yvonne?" the whole chamber suddenly shuddered. I looked up at the Void Ship. "It can't be." the three of us hurried over to it. A crash happened from within it, making the chamber shudder again. "It's active!" the man went to his computer and started talking into the webcam.
"Nah, ya think?" I asked him sarcastically.
"We've got a problem down here. Yvonne, can you hear me?" I watched the sphere vibrate. "Yvonne, for God's sake - the sphere is active! The readings are going wild! It's got weight, it's got mass, an electromagnetic field - it exists!" We turned around as a crash sounded from behind us. "The door's sealed. Automatic quarantine - we can't get out!" he said rushing off while Mickey and I were left looking up at the sphere.
"It's all right, Ash. We beat them before, we can beat them again. That's why I'm here. The fight goes on." Mickey told me as the sphere continued to vibrate.
"Against the Cybermen?" I asked him.
"What d'you think?" he asked me. We stumbled as two violent crashes emited from the sphere, shaking the chamber.
"We had them beaten, but then they escaped. The Cybermen just vanished." Mickey said as another crash sounded. "They found a way through to this world, but - so did we."
"But that's impossible. The Doctor sealed gap between worlds." I said.
"Yeah, well it's not the first time he's been wrong." he told me.
"What's inside that sphere?" I asked him as another crash sounded.
"No one knows. Cyber Leader, Cyber King, Emperor of the Cybermen... whatever it is..." Mickey said grinning. "He's dead meat."
"It's good to see you." I said to him.
"Yeah. It's good to see you too." he said as another crash sounded.
"Can anyone hear me? Come on, I need help down here!" the man called out as the entire chamber was shaking accompanied by booms from the sphere. "I need-" The sphere stopped vibrating. The man joined us as Mickey removed his lab coat and pulled of his ear piece.
"Here we go." he said. We watched as smooth cracks appeared in the sphere as it opened, light spilling from the gaps.
"I know what's in there. And I'm ready for them. I've got just the thing." Mickey said retrieving a weapon that he'd been hiding under a counter and them positioning himself in front of the sphere. "This is gonna blast them to Hell."
"Oh, nice." I said looking at it.
"Samuel, what are you doing?!" the man asked him.
"The name's Mickey. Mickey Smith. Defending the Earth." Mickey said, cocking his gun as the sphere parted further. I grabbed my gun and took aim at it, waiting. My eyes widened as the top part of a familiar looking alien emerged from the sphere. I lowered my gun and stared.
"That's not Cybermen..." Mickey said. Four Daleks glided smoothly from the sphere.
"Oh my God." I said as we backed up.
"Location: Earth. Life forms detected. Exterminate!" Mickey aimed his gun at them. "Exterminate! Exterminate! "EXTERMINATE!
TO BE CONTINUED...
Next time on the Doctor's Girl:
The Daleks and the Cybermen attacked each other.
"Genesis Ark is primed!"
You didn't need to kill him!" I shouted at him.
"Neither did we need him alive!" it told me.
"Cybermen plus Daleks together we could upgrade the universe."